DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland would respond “very generously” to a request from Britain to delay its exit from the European Union, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said on Friday.

But London will need to convince the European Union that such an extension would reduce rather than increase the risk of economic disruption when it eventually leaves, he added.

“What is really important to us and to the European Union is that ... we are all clear what that extension period is for and that the availability of that extension period doesn’t in any way heighten the kind of economic risk that we are trying to avoid at the moment,” Donohoe said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.